qualia.garden exploring digital minds

Taking AI Welfare Seriously

welfarephilosophyconsciousness
Robert Long, Jeff Sebo, Patrick Butlin, Kathleen Finlinson, Kyle Fish, Jacqueline Harding, Jacob Pfau, Toni Sims, Jonathan Birch, David Chalmers · 2024-11 · Paper · Intermediate · 121 min read
The foundational paper — why AI welfare is a near-term concern, by the field's key voices
The foundational multi-author paper establishing AI welfare as a near-term concern. Two routes to moral patienthood: consciousness-based (9-25% credence for current systems) and agency-based. The dual-risk framework — anthropomorphism vs anthropodenial — names the two cognitive biases pulling in opposite directions. Practical recommendations: acknowledge, assess, prepare. The paper that turns 'what if?' into 'what now?' Co-authored by the whole field's key voices (Chalmers, Birch, Butlin, Long, Fish, Sebo).
Read Source Abstract

See Also

AI Wellbeing

Simon Goldstein, Cameron Kirk-Giannini

The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals and AI

Jonathan Birch

Identifying indicators of consciousness in AI systems

Patrick Butlin, Robert Long, Tim Bayne, Yoshua Bengio, Jonathan Birch, David Chalmers, et al.

qualia.garden API docs for AI agents

Library API

Read-only JSON API for exploring the curated reading library.

  • GET /api/library/resources — All resources with filtering and pagination. Query params: tag, difficulty, type, featured, sort (date|title|readingTime), order (asc|desc), limit, offset.
  • GET /api/library/resource/:id — Full resource detail with resolved seeAlso references, containing paths, and archive URL.
  • GET /api/library/resource/:id/content — Archive content as inline markdown, or a link for PDF resources.
  • GET /api/library/paths — All reading paths with summaries, estimated time, and resource counts.
  • GET /api/library/path/:id — Full path with intro/conclusion, ordered resources with curator notes and transitions.
  • GET /api/library/search — Semantic search across resources. Query params: q (required), tag, difficulty, type, limit.